"Alcoholics Anonymous' Twelve
Steps are a group of principles, spiritual in
their nature, which, if practiced as a way of life,
can expel the obsession to drink and enable the
sufferer to become happily and usefully whole."*
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We admitted we were
powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become
unmanageable.
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Came to believe that a
Power greater than ourselves could restore us to
sanity.
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Made a decision to turn
our will and our lives over to the care of God as we
understood Him.
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Made a searching and
fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
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Admitted to God, to
ourselves and to another human being the exact nature
of our wrongs.
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Were entirely ready to
have God remove all these defects of character.
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Humbly asked Him to remove
our shortcomings.
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Made a list of all persons
we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to
them all.
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Made direct amends to such
people wherever possible, except when to do so would
injure them or others.
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Continued to take personal
inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
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Sought through prayer and
meditation to improve our conscious contact with God
as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of
His will for us and the power to carry that out.
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Having had a spiritual
awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to
carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these
principles in all our affairs.